I Received System to Become Dragonborn-Chapter 1259: Vision

Evan's breathing grew sharper as the exchange continued. Each activation of his Magic tugged at him like a muscle pushed past its limit.

The time-slowing field rippled again and again, bending the flow around his body, letting him slip between moments, letting him strike harder and faster than any normal fighter ever could.

But it burned very fast on his Magic energy reserve.

"I'm always using too much," Evan realized grimly. His jaw tightened. "That's why I can't drag this out."

His ability had never been about endurance. He could slow time only in short bursts, only in narrow ranges. That limitation was why he trained harder than most. Why he was always quiet, always focused.

He knew his Magic wasn't overwhelmingly strong. It was sharp, bht also conditional and temporary.

By slowing the world, he could make himself faster than everyone else. Fast enough to land decisive blows, heavy hits that ended fights before his stamina collapsed.

But Mira was different.

Against her, the advantage was gone. She didn't just move fast. She also able to adapted fast. Every time Evan stretched time, Mira pushed her own speed further, her movements compressing into tighter, cleaner bursts that gnawed away at his window of dominance.

She was negating him.

"I knew this was the problem," Evan thought, a long, controlled sigh slipping through his nose as he parried another strike. "I don't think I can defeat her."

Above the arena, Erend leaned forward slightly. Then he suddnly stopped frozen.

A sharp pressure stabbed behind his eyes and the world lurched in his vision.

For a fraction of a second, his vision tore away from the arena entirely.

He saw a city—his city—collapsed into ruin. Skyscrapers and towers split open like broken ribs. Streets choked with fire and ash. And there, in the distance, loomed a massive, monstrous silhouette that looked too large and too strange.

Its form blurred and indistinct, but the destruction around it was unmistakable.

That thing caused this.

Erend gasped and blinked hard.

The vision shattered un an instant.

He was back in the observation platform. His heart pounding in his chest. His breath caught halfway in his throat.

The arena roared below as Mira and Evan clashed again, unaware of anything beyond their fight.

He looked at Adrien, Billy, Jessica, Conrad, Thomas and saw none of them reacted. No one of them noticed what happened to him. They were still watching the battle.

Erend swallowed slowly, dread settling deep in his gut.

"What… was that?" he thought, eyes fixed on the arena below, even as his mind lingered on the image of destruction.

The sounds of battle and cheers fillled the space.

Erend blinked once more, forcing his breathing to steady as the echoes of the vision faded completely.

The roar of destruction still lingered in his mind, distant but heavy, like thunder remembered after a storm had passed.

"That wasn't imagination," he thought grimly. "This has to be Krono's power… the fragment I shared with Eccar and Aesa. They muat be also able to seeing it."

It felt different from memory or illusion. The weight of it had been too real and sharp. Not a dream, but a glimpse, an event waiting somewhere ahead in time.

His eyes drifted back to the arena, yet the silhouette remained burned into his thoughts. Even without clear shape, he could feel the enormous, twisted, and the power radiated from it so intensely that the world around it had seemed fragile by comparison.

"That thing…"

His jaw tightened.

"Is that one of the Void Architect's creations?"

The thought sent a chill through him. He remembered Zerathul have the power of necromancy so great it made him shudder. And yet Zerathul had been nothing more than a herald. A messenger. A precursor.

Not a true creation.

"Zerathul almost tore multiple worlds apart," Erend thought. "And that thing felt… worse. Much worse."

If what he had seen was real, if that monster truly existed and decided to move now, then whatever future awaited them would be far darker than he had known.

Below, the clash between Mira and Evan intensified, shockwaves rippling as their fists met again.

Evan's time-slowing Magic flared violently, distortion lines rippling around his body as he pushed his ability harder than before.

Erend barely noticed.

His hands tightened around the railing, metal creaking softly beneath his grip as he clenched his fists.

He ground his teeth in silence, forcing the dread back down where it belonged.

Whatever that vision meant, whatever monster lurked in the future, this wasn't the moment to speak of it with anybosy here for now.

No one else had noticed. Adrien was still calmly observing the fight. Billy leaned forward with interest. Jessica's fingers continued tapping data into her tablet, unaware that Erend's time power had just whispered a warning.

Erend sighed slowly.

"If that future is coming," he thought, eyes hardening, "then we'll need to be ready, again."

His gaze sharpened as he looked back to the arena below.

The distortion around Evan finally began to falter.

It was subtle at first. The stretched air wavered, the invisible pressure that bent time around him thinning like glass about to shatter.

His breathing turned ragged, chest heaving as sweat traced pale lines down his face. Every step he took felt heavier than the last.

"Too much…" Evan realized, teeth clenched. "I pushed it too far."

He had burned through his Magic energy faster than he ever had before. Time slowing flooded his body in unstable surges now, forcing his perception forward just enough to keep up with Mira but only barely.

Against anyone else, this would have been overwhelming. Against Mira, it was a race he was losing.

Mira saw it. Not with her eyes alone, but with instinct honed through countless battles. The rhythm was off. The delay between pulses had grown longer.

"There," she thought. Her lungs also burning. "He's reaching his limit."

She accelerated one last time, forcing her exhausted body to obey through sheer will.

Her movements became raw and unpolished, no longer playful and clean. Just fast.

Evan tried to activate his Magic again but nothing answered.

His eyes widened as the world snapped back into its normal flow. Its crashed down on him all at once, the backlash stealing the strength from his legs.

Mira was already there.

Her fist hit his chest. The impact sent him skidding backward across the arena floor before he collapsed onto his back, breath ripped from his lungs.

Silence followed.

Evan stared up at the sky for a moment, then let out a weak, breathless laugh. "Yeah… I knew it."

Mira took one step forward and her legs also gave out.

She dropped to her knees hard, palms bracing against the cracked stone as her shoulders shook with heavy breaths.

Sweat dripped from her chin, her vision blurring at the edges.

"Damn… I overdid it too," she thought, forcing a tired grin.

Above them, Erend finally let out a breath.

"That was close," he said with a smile.

Adrien nodded. "Both of them hit their limits."

Below, Mira lifted her head and looked at Evan, smiling through exhaustion.

"You were amazing," she said honestly.

Evan closed his eyes, still smiling. "Heh. So were you."

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